Winnipeg couples change and postpone weddings due to coronavirus

Concerns about the new coronavirus were an unwelcome wedding crasher for couples planning their special day.

Scott Day and his fiancé Janelle had everything set for their wedding on March 21.

After realizing they couldn’t have the wedding they planned, they walked down a makeshift aisle.

“We had a snowmobile aisle-way because all of our friends came with their sleds. It was totally different, it was kind of awesome, super personal,” he said.

“We decided to still get married, just out here at the lake right in our backyard and just have a real small ceremony with our family and closest friends from the area.”

The couple didn’t want to wait to say their vows but they’re still planning on having the wedding they planned eventually.

“We didn’t know how long it was going to be postponing it, that we could be waiting a full year or something like that and we were just so in love that we wanted to still have our ceremony and have our big day. We knew it wasn’t going to be anything close to what we originally planned but we made the best of it,” Day said.

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Another couple, Nathalie Whitney and Paul Guimond, also had their wedding scheduled for March 21 but pushed it back.

“It all changed really quickly,” Whitney said. 

“I felt like I was mourning a loss. I felt like I lost something huge because you’re emotionally invested. It felt like a huge loss.”

The weekend before their big day, friends started phoning them wondering what was happening, and some cancelling their RSVP.

“You have your final numbers in, you have your seating chart and then this hits you,” she said.

“You knew what we going on in the world but you didn’t think it was happening this close, this fast.”

Whitney and her fiancé have moved their new date to Aug. 15, hoping things will be cleared up by then.

“There was definitely an option to get married on Saturday but it wasn’t what we wanted and we put in a lot of money to have the wedding we wanted.”